Entities often generate and use data that is important in some way to their operations. This data can include, for example, business data, financial data, and personnel data. If this data were lost or compromised, the entity may realize significant adverse financial and other consequences. Accordingly, many entities have chosen to back up some or all of their data so that in the event of a natural disaster, unauthorized access, or other events, the entity can recover any data that was compromised or lost, and then restore that data to one or more locations, machines, and/or environments.
Due to the critical nature of backup systems and the associated data, it is important for backup data domains and other environments to be compliant with ever-changing industry standards and protocols. As well, compliance with the standards and protocols is not always simply a matter of good practice, but may also be mandated by customers, service level agreements (SLAs), regulatory bodies or governments. One area where compliance with such a protocol or specification has presented challenges concerns the move from Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).
In brief, IPv4 concerns an address space that includes internet protocol (IP) addresses available for use by hosts and other nodes in communicating with each other. Over time, all of the addresses in the IPv4 space have been consumed and the need to move to a larger address space has been recognized, resulting in the creation of IPv6. Because at least some of the configuration and operational requirements of IPv4 are different from those of IPv6, problems can arise when transitioning from the old address type to the new address type. Some of these problems concern the number of addresses that can be used by a network interface of a host, and the way in which those addresses are associated with that network interface.
For example, IPv4 specified that only one address could be assigned to an interface. If there was a need for multiple addresses to be associated with that interface, an IPv4 alias was used. The IPv6 approach also enables only a single static IP address to be added to an interface. However, there is often a need to be able to associate multiple IPv6 addresses with a single interface, and IPv6 addresses are not supported in the same way as IPv4 addresses.
Moreover, with IPv4, the user could simply give the interface another address or just set the address to be deleted to zero. In contrast, while IPv6 allows multiple different addresses to be used with a single interface, if the user wants to change between addresses, such as by deleting an existing address and replacing that address with a new one, the user has to remember the address and request that the address be deleted. This approach is further complicated because the network address size of 128 bits specified by IPv6 requires the user to remember and enter a relatively long address.
In light of problems and shortcomings such as these, it would be useful to be able to assign a single static IPv6 address to an interface, while also allowing multiple addresses to be associated with the static address. As well, it would be useful to enable a user to readily add, delete and change one, some, or all, of the multiple addresses. Finally, it would be useful to be able to associate multiple aliases, each with a respective IP address, with a single static address of an interface.